CARIBOU COORDINATIONPage 1The purpose of the following
pages is to tell you a story. A true story of our people who, to this day,
live off of the land and coexist with the great Porcupine Caribou Herd
the way our ancestors did20,000 years ago.

The Vuntut Gwitchin is the name of
our people which in our language means “people of the lakes.” We live in
the northernmost community of Old Crow located 128 km (80 miles ) north
of the Arctic Circle at the confluence of the Crow and Porcupine Rivers
in Canada’s Yukon Territory. We the Vuntut Gwitchin are one of 19 communities
spread out across the US State of Alaska, and the Canadian territories
of the Yukon and western Northwest Territory. These 19 villages and cities
are inhabited by over 7500 people which together form a nation of people:
the Gwitchin Nation.

Strategically placed by Gwitchin elders to overlap with the seasonal
migration routes of the 150,000 to 180,000 strong Porcupine Caribou Herd
(so-called because of the herd’s crossing of the Porcupine River during
its fall and spring migrations) the Gwitchin villages still depend on this
magnificent herd for food, clothing, and various crafts. The Porcupine
caribou are the centre of Gwitchin culture.

Caribou
Crossing

The caribou wades the creek in silence. Through the river, rocks and barely a ripplemarks the caribou passage.The caribou travelling through north woods of blue greens.The caribou travel through a Land coveredwith rich pouring of sun ripenedberries of different kinds. Caribou crossing through weaves of brilliant green colour leaves.Plush, cool grass.Caribou galloping through the riversand across the plainsThe caribou roams the mountains,covered with carpets of flowersthrough the cool summers.A tranquil window of fleeting sunlight;after a gray floatingneither ready to concede to the slowly clearing clean blue sky.Nights are turning chillwinter’s gentle sun....The caribou roam the country by the thousands,thundering hooves across the mountains.~Nancy Flitt, Old Crow~

T he Vuntut Gwitchin of Old Crow make
up a
community of approximately 300 people. A
community with no road access to the rest of the
world, one can only reach this village by boat
in the summer, snow machine in the winter, or
plane year-round. This isolation is a blessing
for our people, for it enables us to preserve
our language, traditional pursuits such as
fishing, trapping, snow shoeing and hunting -
particularly hunting the Porcupine Caribou Herd.

The land of the Vuntut Gwitchin is the land
of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. Each spring
(April / May) and autumn (August / September)
the caribou pass through the lands of the Vuntut
Gwitchin - north to the arctic coastal plain to
calve in the summer months and south of Old
Crow in the autumn to its wintering range. We
set up camps out on the land and hunt the
caribou, which we then take back to our camps
to prepare.